A wide variety of thermoformed, nested, plastic products such as plastic foam or non-foam meat trays, plastic covers, and the like are produced in a nested relationship, which nested plastic products must be separated and packaged in discrete units composed of a defined, selected number of products. Generally, an automated system is employed which comprises a thermoformer to thermoform the plastic product, an adjacent in-line horizontal trim press, a separator to separate the product in units, and a bagger apparatus to receive the counted, nested, generally vertical plastic products, and the bagging, such as by the use of a plastic film wrapper, or otherwise packaging the counted nested products.
In one system, the bagger is adjacent the output end of a horizontal trim press and has a plurality of separate, elongated, U-shaped channels to receive the nested plastic product from the trim press. The nested products are separated periodically and cyclically into desired units for packaging, generally by the vertical reciprocating movement of the channel side wall, having at the end thereof short, inwardly projecting plates which are designed to intervene between the edges of the nested plastic products being fed to the bagger and to separate a selected, counted number of nested plastic products from the nested products being fed into each channel by the trim press. Generally the side walls with separating blades move upwardly, separate the nested products, and then move forward to propel the counted, separated products into the bagger for conveying to a plastic film wrap station for wrapping of the plurality of counted, nested products.
The operation of this type of nested product separator with vertical, closely nested plastic products such as nested shallow plastic foam meat trays, has not been wholly satisfactory, since the separation is often not precise, and nested product edges and products are often damaged by the blade movement while the separator machine itself gets jammed by the tray products. Thus the accuracy, efficiency, and effectiveness of separating a nested plastic product exiting a horizontal trim press into a bagger is not wholly satisfactory with present techniques and equipment.
It is therefore desirable to provide a nested plastic product separator, system and method which accurately, efficiently, and effectively separates nested plastic products and overcomes many of the disadvantages of the prior art.